what he said. >> the majorityofrepublicansvotedfor it. they used it as a way to holdthedebtceilingto ransom. the only leverage they have is leverage to lower their poll ratings and lower the boom on the american economy. the cbo says if you do this, you won't get unemployment under 7.5% before 2015. you could actually push this economy back into another recession and republicans who use this strategy from 2009 on wrecked the economy to try to wreck obama, weren't able to sell that to the american people in 2012. they can't sell it to the american people now. and you can't rebrand yourself as a party if you're wearing the scarlet letter of deception and economic destruction. >> that's absolutely true. karen, republicans seem to think that they've got the president in a real bind over this sequester. take a listen to this. >> that's not fair. >> democrats are exactly where the republicans were six weeks ago. look, taxes were going up by law. the only question was were you going to negotiate a good package, save as many of the bush tax cuts as you could? >> karen, they're now

thedebtceilingin2011. >> but they now say it was the president who is responsible. >> exactly. they voted for this. >> and paul ryan runs a marathon in less than one hour. >> i thought it was like 20 minutes. he's superman. this is what they wanted. >> of course. congressman, here is another apparent contradiction you might like to clear up for us. on the one hand, you have eric cantor out there giving a speech on making life work. he sounds like tony robbins or something. he's trying to sell yet another iteration of the republican party, but when you strip away the soft smile and the cadence, he'd happily slash every one of those programs that you just went through, wouldn't he? >> oh, absolutely. eric cantor despite all of the covering in the near is definitely proposing budgets that are hostile to middle and low income people. and particularly to vulnerable people, but not only that, you know, programs like s.n.a.p. actually give people money they can spend at the store that allows the store to hire people. eventually the programs they cut will hurt the people who are emplo